Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1887-09-29
DRIVING A FINE ART.
AN EXPERT oIscoURSEs ON THE
NIcETiEs OF RIBBON HANDLING.


Hanson Terror Coming Into Fashion.
Different Styles of Driving-Mauaging
Four-in-Hand.
sab, driving isn't as easy as it looks" the
"borsey man. began. "There are too many
downright idiots trusted with reins and
whips, and it's wonder there are not more
accidents than there are Some of them don't
realize the danger and more of them don't
care Half grown boys are always most to
be dreaded sitting behind horses, and espe-
cially in crowded streets, for there they can
do power of mischief to other people. On
country roads they can rarely hurt any one
but themselves don't mean fast driving,
because it isn't often such fools are trusted
with speedy cattle. Yet man may be run
over and hurt or killed by slow animal just
as well as by fast trotUer. The driving I
mean is what 1 call sloppy driving, where
the reins hang half loose over the dashboard,
and the animal is never under control until
after an accident has happened. Then, again,
some of the fools I'm speaking about drive
with such a tight rein that they stop the
circulation round the horses mouth, and they
might as well try to pull up a cyclone as at
TEMPT to check even a slow beast in that state
when he's frightened and starts TO run away
Women don't, as rule, drive well, although
some of them do. They're too fidgety, shak-
ing the reins and slashing with the whip
They're worse than flies, some of them, to
nervous horse, and nearly all of them want
too much continuous work out of an animal
SPEAKING OF BAD DRIVERS.
SIT stands to reason, doesn't it, that a horse
can't go at top speed all the timel know
IL xrhry bry,
should be expected to do an impossibility
But you can't persuade some ladies of that;
they keep on ficking the animal with the
whip and nagging at him with the reins, for
all the world as if he were a contrary hus-
band.n
"You speak of bad drivers How can that
be remedied?n
SIT can only be done with the drivers Of
public conveyances and licensed drivers gen.
orally. You don't trust steam boiler or a
locomotive to man until he knows how to
handle it, do you? OF course not. Then why
should you trust him with horse that's often
just as dangerous as any high pressure boiler
that ever was built? Why should man that
wants to earn his living by driving horses not
be called upon to prove that he can do it?
Look at those cab drivers we've got
Why, some of them don't know and don't
care where or how they 60. They cut in be-
hind vehicles and pop out upon people, either
frightening them TO death or driving over
them. Then there are those fellows who
drive two and three horse wagons. Look
how some of them turn corners. As rule,
however, men who drive heavy vehicles are
more careful, because of the weight behind
them and the room they need to make q
curve, but these light cart chaps are mostly
as bad as they make them, and cab drivers,
when they're careless, are worse than any.
Hansoms are coming into fashion now in this
city, and if they're not looked after they'll
be regular terror to pedestrians, although
they've got an easy job because they sit quite
behind the whole of the thing they drive.
The worst of them is, that they look one way
and drive another, unless they've got fare
inside, and then they go as If the devil was
behind them, which he ought to be, with
good chance of catching up with them"
''sTYLE" IN DRIVING
''What do you think about style in driv-
ing?D
''That there's as much difference in that as
there IS in walking or doing anything else.
A regular coachman's driving is not at all
like swelrs handling the ribbons. If
gentleman has pair or a single before him
he rarely moves his left hand away from in
front of him at the height somewhere about
the fourth button of his waisucoat, with the
whip laid across his hand under his thumb,
using the first two fingers of his right hand
only upon the reins And he mustn't do this
stiff1y, but as easy as if he were holding
cambria handkerchief or a lady's fan. OF
course Pm speaking of man who sits above
his animal. There can be only one way Of
driving buggy, and every man of any
sense knows how to do that, if he can drive
at ALL"
"How about four-in-handp
81 think that very few gentlemen ever
learn to do that properly. 1t is regular
coachman's business at the best and must be
done in coachman's style. You see, there's
such bunch of ribbons in four-in-hand
that mans mind is pretty well occupied,
and he must put it into the work, just leav-
ing enough to spare to manage the whip.
That's study in itself. How very few men
can flick a fly off leaders, ear and by the
same motion of the wrist make the lash whip
itself round the stick in graceful rings, until
the main part of the lash is the only large
loop left hanging, as the part near the end
comes up under his right thumb. I've known
men to practice that trick for weeks off the
the coach and when they tried it on the real
thing get the whole affair into such snarl
that it looked like Chinese puzzle. New
York Star